sp4f on 24/3/2006 at 21:13
Quote Posted by Ultraviolet
In the case of mass buying, such as for a college campus, it is favorable to go with such a company. You can send them back if they don't work, and by the time your service contract expires, it'll be time to get new machines anyway.
Oh gods no. You don't send machines back, you expect (and have) a company engineer on site by 10am the next day to fix it if it is anything serious like the motherboard or processor. If it is a trivial fix like a faulty hard drive, memory or power supply you just swap the part from your spares and send the faulty part back.
Dell service contracts just aren't that good value for money.
Also you can never ever afford to replace all your machines at the end of every service contract, especially not when you've also got do yearly server upgrades, switch upgrades, get new fibre run etc. Usually you'll buy say between 50 - 250 machines a year depending on budget after everything else gets taken into consideration. I'm only expecting to see 50 this year which is annoying when you've still 8 year old machines in active use on campus. Yearly expansion is an absolute bitch when it comes to maintaining the infrastructure :erg:.
.ac techies represent ;).
Edit - For what it's worth I've never had anything but problems with Dell machines but then I've only ever seen them when they are in serious need of repair. Used to fix about 10 Dells a week that were out of warranty. Most of them were less than a year and half old and we rarely saw any older Dells coming in for repair. Guess build quality must be suffering due to the recent sales pushes.
Ultraviolet on 24/3/2006 at 22:49
I oversimplified. The campus I worked with upgraded all the computers in a few rooms all at once, thus making sure that constant upgrading didn't suck out all the money.
sp4f on 25/3/2006 at 00:32
Heh. Always the way, believe me. Gods I wish we had the budget to upgrade all 3,500 machines but such is life :P.
Goblin on 25/3/2006 at 03:00
To clear up a little misconception ITT. THERE IS NEVER AN EXCUSE TO BUY DELL.
No matter how lazy you are, no matter how little you know about computer specs, only stupidity makes Dell a viable option. They have the most atrocious value/money I have ever seen. I'm talking bottled-water markups.
My computer is better than what Dell are selling for their "premium price range". My computer was assembled from parts that where both budget-quality (Celeron, need I say more?) and out-of-date when I bought it. It cost AU$500 three years ago. Since then it's had a $250 video card update, also budget and out-of-date (AGP slot, less than six months ago, not rocket science). The whole kit and kaboodle is probably worth less than AU$300 today.
Dell's "Performance" model on its current catalogues has:
1. A slower CPU than mine.
2. No video card or even a slot for one.
3. 256mb DDR (not DDR2) ram with no expansion slots.
4. An AU$3000 price tag.
No amount of customer support or bundled software could possibly make this a good deal.
Even if you're on a contract to bulk-buy Dell computers for half price, you're still getting broken glass up the out-hole.
Zerker on 25/3/2006 at 04:00
Quote Posted by Ultraviolet
When people start to get interested in high-end hardware, though, I can't really forgive them for going with Alienware. If they're interested in high-end hardware, they should take the time to learn how to plug simple shit into receptacles on a motherboard and not be so intimidated by electronics.
I'm just paranoid of heat sinks, personally :p Thermal glue, perfect contact... ick. Of course, I'll still probably build my next computer too, but I hate that part.
Shug on 25/3/2006 at 04:03
Actually Gobs, that sounds like a complete load of horseshit or else a misinterpretation of what's actually available / the specs sheet of a particular machine. I used to check out the Dell website frequently over 6 months ago and they had their "gaming range" out back then. I won't argue it's overpriced, but they DO supply some reasonably topline stuff (apart from the whole LOL CHEAP MOTHERBOARD CUTS COSTS).
edit: just to illustate the point, I've configured my own machine on the dell.au website with a 3.4 Pentium D (physical dual core), 2GB of 533 DDR2 ram, and a 256Mb PCI-E 7800GTX video card. 19" LCD, 160 gig sata drive, integrated sound blah blah. Overpriced? Most certainly, at AU$3,735 - but also most certainly top line in terms of home PCs
Goblin on 25/3/2006 at 04:58
Shug, what I just posted came straight from the Dell catalogue (except the no-slots bit, that was hearsay) that gets delivered to my work about twice-a-week. I've never been to their website, maybe they've just got an extra-sucker-deluxe range they flog on junkmail only.
I'll bring a flyer home and scan it for you if you won't take my word for it, they honestly are pushing these outdated shit machines for $3k.
Shug on 26/3/2006 at 02:15
Sounds worth a geeze to be sure, to be sure
